Mersey measles outbreak now up to 85 cases

A MEASLES outbreak is continuing to rage in Merseyside.

Health experts today revealed the number of confirmed cases has risen to 85. They are also looking at a further 44 probable cases which means the number may rise again.

The figures mean 14 new cases have been confirmed in the last week alone.

But despite the increases, Health Protection Agency (HPA) staff are confident the disease is being contained.

And they said this recent surge were all cases known to them that had now been confirmed by lab tests.

A team of staff from the HPA and local NHS services has worked seven-days-a-week, identifying and following up the contacts of 441 suspected measles cases since the outbreak started.

The majority of the cases are in children under the age of five who were not vaccinated at the optimum age of 13 months.

Experts form the HPA said the best form of protection against measles is the MMR vaccination.

The NHS in Merseyside wrote to the parents of 7,300 children under the age of five who were not fully immunised urging them to take up the offer.

MMR uptake rates on Merseyside are now high with 95% of children under the age of two having had their first MMR injection.

The team believes the outbreak is a legacy of earlier years when uptake rates were not as good.

Dr Roberto Vivancos from the HPA’s Cheshire and Merseyside Health Protection Unit said: “Measles is highly infectious and unvaccinated children are at risk when it gets into a community, as it has done here on Merseyside.

“Furthermore, when unvaccinated older children pick up an infection they can pass it on to vulnerable infants who are too young to be vaccinated. That would appear to be what’s happened in this outbreak.”

Of the 85 confirmed cases, 51 are in Liverpool, 13 are in Sefton, eight are in Knowsley, two in Wirral, five in St Helens and Halton, one in Warrington with the others in Cheshire.

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Alastair Machray was appointed editor of The Liverpool Echo in 2005 and is also editor-in-chief of Trinity Mirror Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales. He is a former editor of The Daily Post (Wales and England) and editor-in-chief of the company's Welsh operations. Married dad-of-two and keen golfer Alastair is one of the longest-serving newspaper editors in the country. His titles have won numerous awards and spearheaded numerous successful campaigns.